It's not the change it's the possibility of change. That's how Barack Obama described his election on the night of November 4. " This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. " He said and he continued. "And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were."

Too right. The way things were, have led us to this point: as the data filters in... unemployment at 6.5% and rising... US consumer confidence is at the lowest point since its measurement began ... The entire industrial world is showing Negative growth for the first time since WW2...

We're in need of real change. There's no quick fix. And that's why it is less than reassuring to read over the list of economic advisers on the Obama transition team. Among them: Lawrence "women are genetically predisposed to limited science and math achievement" Summers, Robert "$200 million" Rubin, Paul "I played ball with the Reagan administration" Volker.

The pressing question they face is who can they find to run the treasury who can somehow convince the banks to start lending money -- not to other banks, but to taxpayers. After all, it's taxpayer's money they are holding. After years of going wild with subprime and other schemes -- and making hundreds of billions of dollars in profits -- the bank are now re-discovering prudence. Their obligation, the banks explain, is first and foremost to their shareholders.

It's a redefining of obligations: who owes what to whom that's needed now. It's hard to imagine it'll come from those, like those who've made their millions on exactly the system that's now in trouble.

Luckily, the president-elect said something else a week ago. Not only that we can't go back to the way things were, but that it can't happen without you -- us. That's an invitation waiting to accepted if ever I heard one.